#and did in fact experience queerphobia due to his identity

[thesaviorofmisbehavior]

This wasn’t a call out. The op of the post you tagged me in blocked me (but not before coming into my inbox to call me a dipshit for linking them to a document by the anti defamation league discussing the use of gay as a slur). I wanted to answer you.

I don’t lack empathy. I refuse to tag my identity as a slur. Queer is an identity as well as gay. It’s my identity and many other people’s identities and to insist on tagging someone’s identity a slur is a very good example of a microaggression.

I do however tag posts on my blog as “queer” or “queerphobia” so that people can blacklist those tags and not see posts about queerness. If people refuse to blacklist those tags, that’s not my responsibility. I have done my due diligence. I however, am not perfect, and I’m sure I’ve missed a post or two. I have anxiety, depression, and ptsd and my mental health can take a toll on my blog maintenance. If you catch a post on my blog that discusses queerness or queerphobia that I have not tagged as “queer” or “queerphobia” and let me know about it I’ll gladly tag it. My aim is not to trigger anyone.

Gay was used a slur from the beginning too. It was used to imply frivolous, amoral promiscuity. It did not start as a good thing. To say otherwise demonstrates a supreme misunderstanding of lgbtq+ history. Queer was used as a slur to begin with too, I don’t deny it. However queer went under a long complicated difficult reclamation process over the course of decades. The purpose of this reclamation was to take the power out of the hands of our oppressors. To insist that people censor their own identity or drop the only umbrella term they’re comfortable with makes the word MORE taboo, thus making it more powerful to oppressors.

I mean there are organizations like queer nation that literally have it in their name and hand out literature at pride discussing its use as an umbrella term. Queer is so reclaimed that lgbtq+ studies in academia are consistently referred to as queer studies, queer theory, etc. and this is not considered a radical controversial thing.

Now if you would like to insist (as someone else did) that academia referring to queer studies as such is all actually just a ploy by the cishets so they can use a nasty slur, I’ll happily go inform the head of my women’s, gender and queer studies department that he’s not actually a bi, queer, intersex, nonbinary transman. That he did not in fact give birth to his son. Because he’s a cishet man who just wants to further the compilation of lgbtq+ history and legitimize their identities and the struggles they go through, and study the roots of phobias to find out why they exist in society and how they effect people and why, exactly they are shitty, all so that he can... undermine lgbtq+ people and use a slur, I guess.

I also find it distressing that you take my experience with trauma and my discomfort with gay as an umbrella term and then totally dismiss it. With false history, btw. As though to say “yes but who CARES about that type of trauma. This type is more important.”

Also my experience with gay isn’t isolated and the fact that it’s an identity does not negate the fact that it’s a slur. The world is a strange place full of contradictions and grey areas. If it’s used like a slur and hurts like a slur. It’s a slur. Quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck. Must be a duck. There is no mutual exclusivity here.

Also the human rights campaign has gone on record saying that the q in the acronym can stand for queer or questioning. GLAAD also suggests the inclusion of a q in the acronym to be inclusive of people who identify as queer. My campus sexuality and gender alliance recognizes queer as a legitimate identity. The stonewall charity uses queer as an umbrella term. The Iranian Railroad for Queer refugees has it in its name. Egale Canada uses the acronym lgbtqi2s and uses the q to mean queer. In case you thought I was pulling the wide acceptance of queer in person to person spaces out of my ass.

Advocate.com has an article titled “21 words the queer community has reclaimed (and some we haven’t)” and #1 on the list is queer. The anti defamation league includes gay in its lesson plan on anti gay slurs, alongside fag and dyke.

Robert Postic and Elizabeth Prough publishes a peer reviewed article in 2014 titles “that’s gay! Gay as a slur among college students” it’s available on Sage journals.

Hell. Wikipedia has a “generalize pejorative use” section on the “gay” Wikipedia page.

@bigbirdcourse

I’m sorry that was said to you. Never said queer wasn’t used to bully people tho. When I was in grade school I was called a gay dyke. Because I was a tomboy. I was also called gay over and over again in catholic school as a term of derision because I didn’t fit the expected standards of quiet, demure femininity. Do you think they meant that nicely? Or as a slur?

I’m not saying “stop using gay because it’s a slur/was used a slur against me/is a component of my trauma” tho

I’m saying that people need to stop policing the use of queer for reasons that apply to gay as well, unless they’re going to start policing the use of gay.

I also dislike “the gay community” because I’m often included in it without being asked if I’m ok with being called gay. I’m not. It misorients me, and, as I said earlier, gay was used as a slur against me, and it has a history as a slur. Aka: the same reasons people dislike “the queer community.”

But everybody who claims they care about people who were bullied or could be triggered by an umbrella term or were traumatized don’t seem to care about people who say they’ve had those experiences with “gay.” So I’ve begun to expect that people who claim that’s the reason they care about “queer” don’t actually care about traumatized lgbt+ people since they don’t listen to accounts of people with any trauma that deviates from their political narrative. They don’t practice what they preach, simply put.